All posts tagged New Jersey 2013 Senate Race

A record amount of money from independent groups has flowed in New Jersey’s statewide elections this year, ranking it the sixth greatest spending in any election nationwide, according to a new analysis.

Associated Press

Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, left, greets Democratic challenger Barbara Buono at the start of their debate on October 15.

Nearly $38 million has been spent on New Jersey’s elections so far, the most ever in any past election and more than twice the previous record of $15 million in 2009, figures released Thursday by the state Election Law Enforcement Commission showed.

Jeff Brindle, executive director of the commission, called the total “mind-boggling.”

Jeff Brindle, executive director of the commission, called the total “mind-boggling.”

“It’s a whole new world in New Jersey politics,’’ Mr. Brindle said. Read More »

Cory Booker, New Jersey’s U.S. senator-elect, also won the race on Twitter, which has been one of the defining parts of his public persona.

The Democrat’s race against Republican Steve Lonegan Wednesday was well chronicled on Twitter. Mr. Booker had more than 33,000 mentions on the social media network over a 24 hour period between Tuesday and Wednesday evening, according to figures provided by the company.

That trumped Mr. Lonegan’s mentions by about 44%. Mr. Lonegan had 21,000 mentions during the same 24 hour period, according to Twitter figures. Read More »

How much is Democrat Cory Booker leading over Republican Steve Lonegan in a special election for U.S. Senate? Depends on which poll you consult.

Three polls released in the last two days have shown divergent spreads for the race, which is this Wednesday.

A Quinnipiac University Polling Institute survey released Tuesday morning found Mr. Booker, the mayor of Newark, leads with 54% of the 1,696 likely New Jersey voters surveyed. Mr. Lonegan, the former mayor of Bogota, N.J., had 40% of the support. Mr. Booker’s 14 point lead is slightly higher than Quinnipiac’s Oct. 9 survey, which showed him with a 12 point lead.

Other recent polls tended to show that the contest tightened since the Aug. 13 primary. The two men are competing to complete the rest of Frank Lautenberg’s term — he died in June.

A Monmouth University Poll of 1,393 likely voters released Monday found that 52% supported Mr. Booker and 42% backed Mr. Lonegan. That 10-point lead was down from an August Monmouth survey showing Mr. Booker in the lead by 16 points. Read More »

Steve Lonegan, center, greets a couple at a barbecue in August. His aide, Rick Shaftan, is on the left.

An aide to Republican senate candidate Steve Lonegan said he regretted a racy, expletive-laden interview he gave to political blog Talking Points Memo Friday.

“I shouldn’t be talking anymore,” Rick Shaftan, a chief aide to Mr. Lonegan, said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal Friday evening.

“I shouldn’t mouth off like that. It’s not representative of Lonegan, it’s representative of Rick Shaftan,” he said about his remarks.

He was later fired.

Mr. Lonegan, the former mayor of Bogota, N.J. and a conservative, is running against Democrat Cory Booker in a race for New Jersey’s open U.S. Senate seat Wednesday. The battle has become especially heated in recent days.

In the article posted Friday, Mr. Lonegan referenced tweets exchanged between Mr. Booker and an Oregon exotic dancer, Lynsie Lee. Mr. Lonegan alleged that Mr. Booker could be gay because his tweets supposedly didn’t reflect what a straight man would say to a stripper. Read More »

Ms. Palin, the former Republican candidate for vice president in 2008, will appear with Mr. Lonegan on Saturday at a rally at the New Egypt Speedway, the Lonegan campaign announced Wednesday night.

“I am proud to have the opportunity to stand next to a great conservative leader who should have been the vice president as we go into the final hundred hours ’til victory,” Mr. Lonegan said. Read More »

Newark Mayor Cory Booker said Thursday that he interacts with people from “all different types of backgrounds” when asked about his Twitter interactions with an Oregon exotic dancer.

Mr. Booker, who is running in a special election for an open U.S. Senate seat in New Jersey — and is single — said he doesn’t police the backgrounds of his nearly 1.4 million Twitter followers before he messages them.

“I don’t study people’s profiles,” Mr. Booker said during an unrelated campaign press conference in Newark. “It’s not something I pay attention to. But when somebody is kind to me, I often say thank you.”

On Wednesday, it was revealed that Mr. Booker exchanged messages earlier this year with Lynsie Lee, a woman who works at a venue called Casa Diablo in Portland, Ore. that advertises itself as the “world’s first vegan strip club.” The two also exchanged direct messages, which Ms. Lee showed in a screenshot Wednesday to the website BuzzFeed. Read More »

Steve Lonegan, Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, speaks at an primary election night party in August.

The special U.S. Senate race in New Jersey between Democrat Cory Booker and Republican Steve Lonegan has become closer than expected, according to a new poll.

The Newark mayor leads the former mayor of Bogota, N.J. 53% to 41%, according to a survey released by the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute on Tuesday.

The survey is Quinnipiac’s first of the Senate race after the Aug. 13 primary. In the institute’s Aug. 7 survey before the primary, Mr. Booker led Mr. Lonegan among registered voters by 54% to 29%.

Mr. Lonegan has aggressively attacked Mr. Booker’s record in Newark, including a recent crime wave in the city. He has also criticized the mayor for making money from speaking fees for lectures across the country. Read More »

U.S. Senate candidate Cory Booker after winning the Democratic primary in August.

A Jersey City rally for Newark Mayor Cory Booker’s campaign for U.S. Senate with Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel was abruptly canceled Friday.

The Booker campaign didn’t give a reason for the cancellation. An Emanuel administration spokesman said the evening event was scrapped because of a shooting in Chicago late Thursday that left 13 people wounded, including a 3-year-old boy.

“The mayor needed to come back,” a mayoral spokesman said.

Mr. Emanuel was in meetings Friday morning with White House cabinet members, but canceled those meetings as well to return to Chicago, the spokesman said. He couldn’t immediately say if the rally for Mr. Booker would be rescheduled.

Mr. Emanuel served as chief of staff to President Barack Obama during his first term until he resigned to run as the mayor of Chicago in 2010. Mr. Booker was a prominent surrogate for Mr. Obama during his campaign last year. Read More »

Mayor Steve Lonegan, Republican candidate for the United States Senate was in endorsed by Senator Rand Paul at the The Gran Centurions in Clark, N.J. on Friday.

At a rally in this township west of Staten Island, Mr. Paul, a first-term Kentucky senator, said he was backing Steven Lonegan, the former mayor of Bogota, N.J. and an insurgent New Jersey Republican who has also taken on Mr. Christie in the past, losing to him in the 2009 GOP gubernatorial primary.

“Steven Lonegan can win,” Mr. Paul said. “I think Steven Lonegan can be the answer to how we grow the Republican Party. I’m proud to be associated with him.”

Mr. Paul’s trip to New Jersey was notable in part because of a week-long feud that recently erupted with Mr. Christie. In July, Mr. Christie faulted Mr. Paul and other libertarian thinkers for “dangerous” strains of foreign policy. Mr. Paul shot back, accusing Mr. Christie of being the “king of bacon” for asking for too much federal aid for victims of superstorm Sandy. Read More »